Journal, July 1, 1994, my 31st birthday…

To celebrate, I flew, of course. First, I flew the 150 alone to the practice area and did some spins. It had been a while, and guess what? Spins are still a huge rush.

At 9 p.m., I flew two short field landings on runway 12, the second one short enough that I got the airplane stopped before the intersection with runway 17.

I had asked my young friend Amber if she wanted to fly with me. I picked her up at the terminal, and we flew to Seminole and back, about 30 miles, in the gathering darkness. It was an absolutely beautiful flight.

Almost back to Ada, we followed Dr. Chad in N5434E on five mile final. The approach was so beautiful that I didn’t want it to end, so I flew the missed approach. Both times I flew the VASI all the way to the numbers perfectly.

That birthday with my shy friend Amber in the right seat was perfect.